By IRNA,
London : Britain’s regular army is to be cut to its smallest size for a century in a move to follow the model used in the US and Australia to increase reservists, Defence Secretary Liam Fox confirmed Monday.
Proposed changes are to reduce the army by almost 20 percent from its present strength of 101,000 soldiers to some 82,000 by 2020, while the number of reservists would be more than doubled to around 30,000.
Fox, who is due to make a formal announcement, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the government wanted to have a look at the shape of the armed forces from 2020 and beyond.
He said that lack of investment over the years had meant the fighting strength of the reserve had fallen to around 14,000 and this had led to an ‘imbalance’.
The shake-up will start to take place after British troops give up their combat role in Afghanistan in 2014 and comes as the Treasury has agreed to bolster the defence budget, with £1.5bn earmarked to help pay for beefed-up reserves and more funding for military equipment.
The British government has already carried out a Strategic Defence and Security Review last October, seeking to address an overspend of £38 billion in the Ministry of Defence’s procurement programme, while also making an 8 percent in the annual defence budget to help cut the country’s record deficit.